Dell first to ship systems using new high performance Ultrastar Hard Drives

May 26, 2008 Dell is the first computer supplier to ship server and storage systems using high performance 450GB SAS disk drives based on Hitachi's new Ultrastar 15K450. The 3.5-inch, 15,000 RPM drives deliver 450GB of storage and a 30 percent improvement generation-to-generation in sequential throughput. They also have 50 percent more available capacity than their 300GB predecessors, but similar low power characteristics. The drive features average seek times as low as 3.3 milliseconds and the fast rotational speeds reduce average latency time to 2 milliseconds. The drives are available with either 3Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or 4Gb/s Fibre Channel (FC) interfaces.

Aiming to raise the bar for “green” hard drives the Ultrastar 15K450 hard drives also have a low power efficiency index of 0.03 watts/GB, to deliver higher capacities across multiple platforms in its PowerEdge Server and PowerVault Storage product families. Hitachi is driving the new industry metric of “watts/GB,” as it claims customers are increasingly making decisions based on power profile for the increasing amounts of data that they store. The Ultrastar 15K450, announced in April, 2008, is designed for use in mission-critical server and storage applications, such as online transaction processing, intensive database queries and other multi-user applications.

For further info on the Dell PowerEdge server and PowerVault storage product families visit Dell and for further info on the Ultrastar 15K450 visit Hitachi.

Darren's love of technology started in primary school with a Nintendo Game & Watch Donkey Kong (still functioning) and a Commodore VIC 20 computer (not still functioning). In high school he upgraded to a 286 PC, and he's been following Moore's law ever since. This love of technology continued through a number of university courses and crappy jobs until 2008, when his interests found a home at Gizmag. All articles by Darren Quick